Home: The Longfellow House and the Emergence of Portland uses the Wadsworth-Longfellow House as a prism to explore how Portland has grown and changed over more than 230 years. The exhibition features family belongings that tell the personal and yet universal story of how people live in their homes--including ways of heating, cooking, and plumbing--and how those functions evolved within Portland. The stories of the Wadsworth and Longfellow families and an ever-changing cast of neighbors on their block help explain how Portland has become the beloved, livable city we know today.

A Snapshot of Portland, 1924: The Taxman Cometh, in the Shettleworth Lecture Hall for July and August, celebrates the informal photographs taken by the tax assessor of every taxable building in Portland in 1924. These unique images were recently added to the Maine Memory Network, making them easily accessible to the public. The exhibition highlights a selection of these fascinating snapshots of Portland life-from its first "skyscrapers" to tenements, pool halls, and farms.

Remembering Our Visit: Souvenir China and Mementos of the Longfellow House, in the Showcase Gallery, features objects relating to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his boyhood home that demonstrates the poet's wide public appeal. Collecting souvenirs became popular in the late 1800s with the expansion of the railways and the rise of leisure time in the United States. Local dry goods, crockery, and glassware retailers commissioned pieces and made them available for those who wanted a keepsake of their visit to Portland and the Wadsworth-Longfellow House.   

We are grateful to our Home sponsors:

Davis Family Foundation

BHA Foundation Fund

P. W. Sprague Memorial Foundation

Elsie A. Brown Fund

Gifts in Memory of Elizabeth Hamill

And our Snapshots sponsor:

Portland Magazine